Maputo may be included in port rotation
IT'S BEEN a not-so-good deciduous season, but a good citrus season is expected.
That is a generalisation of the first full-year of a deregulated fruit export industry, according to Trevor Law, recently-appointed g.m. in SA of Cool Carriers - the bulk reefer (refrigerated carrier) shipping operation jointly-owned by the Swedish Leif Hoegh group and Safmarine (the remaining part thereof) in SA.
CC started a reefer service to the NWC (north-west continent) and the UK a year ago but found its initial testing of the waters somewhat unsatisfactory.
It's on industry with all the problems of a newly-deregulated market, said Law.
This included a move from the two customers of the past (Unifruco and Outspan - although now one, under the Capespan banner) to a whole host, each with his own needs and specialised requirements, he added.
There were also landside problems, like not enough cold storage space to handle peak throughputs, and ships standing by for as long as 3-4 days waiting for a miserly additional 3 000-4 000 pallets of fruit.
Add to that a poor deciduous season - both in volumes and quality - and very poor rates ex SA, and you move away from CC's original hopes for a weekly frequency, to two ships serving the SA-NWC-UK trade on an ad hoc basis.
We're through the deciduous season now, said Law, which we didn't think was very good. We were fixing vessels elsewhere in the world at better revenues.
But we put two ships on, and chartered four of our Cool Carriers vessels to Capespan.
For next apple-and-pear season (December 1999 to March/April 2000), CC will be looking at market volumes and rates before it decides whether to go weekly.
What Law is looking at now is more positive, with expectation of a good citrus season from May to September, and 22 vessels running a weekly service for that period.
We'll be calling at Durban as our main port of loading, he said, but also possibly Maputo, for the Mozambican and Zimbabwean perishable cargoes that come down that way.
While Cool Carriers and Seatrade are the two main independent bulk reefer operators in the SA fruit export trade, Law also plays the global charter game.
CC has some 90 vessels in its pool - and juggles this fleet around the world looking for the best rates, in the most convenient places, at the right times.
We also have a new pool of vessels in stock, said Law, in the form of Arctic Reefers. These operate anywhere, anyhow - long-, short-term or single voyage charters.
And selling this to the southern African market is added to Law's other responsibilities. A task, he told FTW, which is done hand-in-hand with Rennies, the ships agents for the line in the region.
Looking into the near future - with the Safmarine partner up-for-sale - Law suggests that CC head office in Stockholm takes a neutral viewpoint.
Leif Hoegh has a first option on the 50% shareholding - should the proposed buyer or deal be in any way unsatisfactory. They're just waiting to see who the new 50% owner will be, he said.
BY ALAN PEAT
